CFP: Asking Big Questions Again

CALL FOR PAPERS

Asking Big Questions Again

Section on Arts, Literature, Film and Performance Studies

23 - 25 November 2017, Lucca, Italy

Agora Cultural Centre

Deadline for Paper Proposals/Performing Lectures/ Short Performances: 15th of September 2017

Early Bird Deadline: 15th of August 2017

The 6th Euroacademia Global Forum of Critical Studies aims to bring into an open floor the reflexive and questioning interaction among academics, intellectuals, practitioners and activists profoundly concerned with evaluative understandings of the world we’re living in. The focus of the forum is to initiate an arena where no question is misplaced and irrelevant as long as we acknowledge that evaluation, critical thinking and contestation are accessible trajectories to better understand our past, present and alternative scenarios for the future.

Conference Description:

Some say that the 21st Century or modernity altogether made humans more concerned with doing rather than being. As the classical Greek civilization valued the most reflexive thinking as a form of freedom from natural necessities, contemporary times profoundly involve individuals and the imaginary accompanying social practices in a restless logic of consumption, competition and engagement that profoundly - or some would say, radically – suspends or indefinitely postpones the autonomous capacity of human beings to question and reflect upon the social order and the meaning of social practices. The fast advancement of the logic of post-industrial societies, the gradual dissolution of alternative models to the capitalist logic and a multitude of other alerting factors pushed ahead a global spread culture of one-dimensional productions of meaning that advances a closure rather than a constant reflexive re-evaluation of cultural/social practices.

Many alternatives at hand are often condemned to marginality or lost in the plural practices where everything goes as long as it’s part of an intellectual market. The ‘fatal strategies’ of post-industrial societies to keep individuals captive, busy and seduced by contingent social arrangements and economic practices minimized the questioning detachment required to evaluate and give meaning through reflexive criticism and unlimited interrogation. Various labels were given to our unfolding times from apocalyptic ones to some more comforting yet not by chance lacking some vital optimism. Despite a wide-spread discontent and suspicion towards the daily realities of our current societies, most of the big questions are often left outside by the self-involved active pursuit of an imagined well-being that is no longer transgressed by harsh critical evaluation of its meaning. The academic arena itself also advances, supports, integrates and promotes limited particular methodologies that generate an effect of mainstreaming and often keeps researchers or practitioners out of the battle-ground for big questions.

The ongoing economic crisis made reality even harsher and pushed ahead the need for more thinking as many habitual categories lost their meaning or relevance. New ways of thinking could transgress some inappropriate conceptions or misconceptions that preserve their centrality due to the mechanics of habits. This is a time when a call to thinking is well-placed. This is a call to arms for critical studies that promotes alternative, questioning and multi-dimensional thinking.

Call for the Section on Arts, Literature, Film and Performance Studies

When it’s about critical thinking and critical studies there is intrinsically an unending open list of topics to be included. The Fifth Euroacademia Forum on Critical Studies proposes the 5 sections (that are by no means exclusive): Theory/Philosophy/Politics/Cultural Studies/Political Economy/Arts, Literature, Film and Performance Studies

We welcome papers, performing lectures, performances and small scale exhibitions. Presentations on the following topics (and not only) are welcome:

The Critical Potential of Arts ~ Aesthetics and Criticism ~ Arts, History and Critical Social Imaginary ~ The Politics of Social Representations ~ Art as an Exchange Value ~ Originality and Complacency ~ Literatures and Authors ~ Heroes and Heroines in Electronic Literature ~ Fiction and the Fictionalization of the Contemporary World ~ Film and the Persisting Hunger for Heroic Imagination ~ The Visual Turn ~ Facing the Post-Self in Critical Art~ Communication, Media and Simulacrum ~ Art and Social Criticism ~ Art and Protest ~ Social Art ~ Critical Performances ~ Performing Identities ~ Queer Art and Gendered Representations ~ Performances and Violence ~ Engaging Critical Audiences ~ Exhibitions and Critical Art ~ Film as a Critical Arty

For complete information before applying see full details of the conference at:

You can apply on-line by completing the Application Form on the conference website or by sending a 300 words titled abstract together with the details of contact and affiliation until 15th of September 2017 at application@euroacademia.org